Recently, a nearly seven-foot carved wooden statue came through Tumbleweed Found. Follow Her Story with Me.

Where Her Story Re-Entered the World

The man who would eventually consign her first encountered her two years ago, shortly after relocating part-time to Oregon. He was searching for furniture for his new home when he stopped at a country sale run by a man who bought and resold the contents of abandoned storage units.

When he asked if there was any other artwork, the seller gestured toward a metal outbuilding. In the back corner stood the sculpture.

He recognized her importance instantly — but he did not have the funds to purchase her at that time. As he left, he paused and said quietly: “That’s quite a piece you have in there.”

She stayed with him.

Months later, while driving the road toward Applegate, Oregon, he stopped at a used furniture store hosting an outdoor vendor sale. He had been there before. By chance, he recognized the same man from the original sale setting up outside. Even though the sale was outside, he asked the owner if he could go inside the shop. He had a feeling the carving would be inside.

He stepped in. There she was — again — standing in a corner. “It felt like revisiting an old sister,” he later said.

 He made an offer. It was accepted and she came home with him.

Her Time In His Care

For more than a year, she stood in the corner of his dining room. In winter, he dressed her in a hat and coat. Each day, she greeted him and was his companion. A woodworker by trade, he carefully cleaned and conditioned the wood.  

“I knew she wasn’t meant to stay forever,” he said. “But somewhere in my DNA, I felt her.”He researched her endlessly — studying regional facial features, historical clues held in her hairstyle, the lived story suggested by her posture, her stance, her hands. 

Once, on Instagram, he saw a woman — a seer — who reminded him of her.

 He knew she wasn’t supposed to stay forever. He understood that this meant finding her next stop before he thought of driving her to a museum in Kansas.  

 Why She Came to Tumbleweed Found

After visiting Tumbleweed Found, he felt a clarity. “You weren’t just a retail shop,” he told Dana. “Every piece in there mattered. It wasn’t about capital gain — it was about connection. She’d be OK there. That’s the only place she could belong in Santa Cruz.” A mutual friend and colleague in the antiques world agreed. And so — she arrived here.

The Day She Was Unwrapped

On the day she arrived, a woman stood at the counter asking about a signed copy of Black Metropolis that I had once carried. Her daughter had brought her in. The book had sold, but she stayed to talk. She shared that she had once lived in Santa Cruz and had worked for the university — a historian specializing in African-American history of the Southern United States.

 At that exact moment, a dolly rolled in. The owner and our mutual friend. I invited the historian to join us in unwrapping the sculpture.

We all stood before her. The historian read her immediately — not as an object, but as a life held in. wood.

We all spoke about what we saw:

• The hairstyle distinctly from the Southern U.S.
• Facial structure and expression
• Wide, unshod feet — suggesting a life lived without shoes
• The mop — held in the posture of someone accustomed to cleaning large spaces: long porches, large kitchens, institutional floors 

She stood — present. Holding the tools of labor with quiet authority. It was a quiet, powerful moment — the kind that reminds us that pieces are Openings. Conversations. Memory work. History work. Healing work.

When She Found Her Next Steward

A family was visiting Santa Cruz from TN. On a previous trip, the mother had noticed the Tumbleweed Found sign and made a note to herself to return when she had time to truly visit.

On her next trip, she came straight to Tumbleweed Found. She moved slowly through each of the small rooms — taking in the objects, the stories, the feeling of the space — and then had an unexpected connection with the seven-foot carved

figure….  She came to me and asked what I knew about her. We spoke about her story, her journey, what had been observed in her carving, and the care she had already received. The connection was immediate and deep.

She returned to her hotel and began right away researching how she could collaborate with a museum and arrange for the sculpture to be transported to Memphis. 

The next morning, when I opened the shop, she returned and confirmed that she did, in fact, want to purchase the sculpture. This was the beginning of her next chapter — a return, in many ways, home to the South. 

She shared that she felt a deep personal connection to the statue. She spoke of her Caribbean background and how it was shaped by African-diasporic art and artists, and how that sensibility continues to guide her collecting and collaborations.

Her Next Chapter

We said goodbye to the statue. She was professionally crated and transported to Memphis, Tennessee. There, she will join a private collection dedicated to African-American art.

Soon, she will be placed on loan to a public museum — where she will be shared, studied, and experienced by a broader community.